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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25075822">Last Choice:Last Resort</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueBioluminescence/pseuds/BlueBioluminescence'>BlueBioluminescence</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Earth-65 Matt/Foggy Stories [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Daredevil (Comics), Spider-Gwen (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Earth-65, Mentions of Suicide, POV Foggy Nelson, post Spider-Gwen comics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:14:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,172</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25075822</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueBioluminescence/pseuds/BlueBioluminescence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdock, aka: former Kingpin of New York, has a plan to cut all of his ties. Too bad Foggy Nelson didn't get the memo.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Matt Murdock &amp; Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, can be read as future Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Earth-65 Matt/Foggy Stories [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828735</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>98</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Last Choice:Last Resort</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is set directly after Issue #32 of the Spider-Gwen comics in which Gwen seemed to just leave Matt broken and defeated and waiting for death at the hand of the...well hand. </p><p>So here is my take on where he went and what he ended up doing.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>
  <span>Last Choice:Last Resort</span>
</h3><p>
  <span>Foggy is alerted to something being wrong by the drops of blood he finds on the floor leading to his bedroom. They are not exactly big and they are not exactly fresh but they are definitely new enough to not have dried completely. He freezes, his satchel half off his shoulder as he follows the trail with his eyes and notes its start point: his window which has been forced open and left that way. He curses under his breath and quickly goes over, latching it shut again and double checking the lock before closing the curtain, then all of the other curtains, and turning toward his bedroom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows that there are probably a number of people that could have broken into his apartment through the fire exit and dropped blood across his floor. There are, technically, any number of people that could be through that door. That he might even be walking into some kind of trap. Instinctively though he knows exactly who and what he will find: Matt Murdock, hurt and damaged and making a mess of his sheets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is exactly what he finds as he pushes open the door and there he is: Matt fucking Murdock passed out and bleeding on his bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Damn it Matt.” He grinds his teeth. He should wake him up and kick him out. After everything that’s happened, after everything that Gwen Stacy has revealed, Foggy knows he needs to kick Matt out, or at the very least call the police. Or an ambulance judging by the blood. It’s not much right now, not really, but Foggy would be a fool to think that Matt hadn’t bled out over half the city making his way here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gets the first aid kit instead, the one Matt purposefully stashed with him when Foggy had first moved into this place. “Just in case.” Matt had said with a too large smile that had always been a little too sharp. Foggy didn’t know then why he or Matt would need such an extensive first aid kit-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. No. That was a lie. He didn’t want to </span>
  <em>
    <span>admit</span>
  </em>
  <span> to himself back then that he knew exactly why he had needed such an extensive first aid kit. Didn’t want to admit to himself why he had taken first aid classes. Didn’t want to admit that the only reason he had gotten into hand sewing clothing was to practice practice practice. but now there was really no more hiding behind false ignorance and unspoken words. Gwen Stacy had revealed everything on Matt Murdock, kingpin of New York, and there were no more dark corners of plausible deniability left for Foggy to hide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy hadn’t decided what he was going to do about that yet, but right now he has a man bleeding out on his bed and so he decides to take things one step at a time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>———</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Foggy?” Matt’s voice comes up, groggy and slurred as Foggy ties off another stitch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh good. You’re awake.” Foggy says, the warmth in his voice only half false, “You bled all over my bed - again - you bastard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matt hums at that and shifts slightly, tilting his head a little toward Foggy so he could flash a smirk at him. “get better sheets and I might start feeling bad about that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy sighs. He figures Matt can’t be that hurt if he was already cracking jokes. He finishes off the last stitch and backes off, pulling the gloves from his hands as he goes. “What are you doing here Matt?” He finally asks as he tosses them away, missing his trash can by a far distance. “What happened?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thought that was obvious.” Matt indicates to his now stitched up side, “I got stabbed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cut the bull Murdock.” Foggy huffs, sitting heavily on the bottom corner of the bed and glaring as he crosses his arms, more for himself then Matt. “That stab wound may have been bad, but it wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> bad and we both know it wasn’t that that brought you here.” He pushes “you only ever come to me like this when something really bad has happened and you have nowhere else to turn. We both know I’m your last choice of people to come to.” The last time had been Electra, after she had suddenly returned to Matt’s life and thrown him into some kind of mental fit. Foggy had known not to ask too many questions but Matt had been broken when he had shown up at Foggy’s apartment. Broken but not, it turned out, unfixable. Never unfixable. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Last resort-“ Matt spoke up, likely cutting through both of their memories of the incident, “is not the same as last choice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Matt-“ Foggy sighs once more, glancing away as he felt his chest tighten at those words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I gave it all up.” Matt rushes on, “Everything. I have nothing left. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nowhere to turn. Nobody to turn to...well.” He pauses, “Nobody but you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy is silent for a long time, his eyes back in Matt’s form, crumpled in the middle of his bloodied bed. “I should call the cops on you Matt.” He finally mumbles “After everything… they’re… they’re looking for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matt hums softly shifting on the bed until he’s laying on his back, his sightless eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Then what’s stopping you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy goes quiet then too, simply watching Matt and trying to figure out Matt’s play, what he’s trying to do, because Matt always has a play, a plan, some way he is trying to manipulate a situation-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But No. That’s a lie too. Matt would deny it if course, and Foggy would too of asked, But sometimes Murdock just does things because...well because…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy shakes his head to clear that thought. It’s not important right now. Right now Matt definitely has a play and Foggy has a pretty damn good bet on what it is. “That's why you're here isn’t it? To force me to get rid of you. You said it yourself,” Foggy huffs, letting his hands fall to his sides “you have nothing but me now, and so, here you are, trying to get rid of me too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sounding a little full of yourself there Mister Nelson.” Matt mocks as if his words are meant to hurt, “You don’t honestly think you’re that important do you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were the one who said there is a difference between a last resort and a last choice Murdock.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matt pulls a hard face then, the smile vanishing for something angry and unhappy as he turns his head away. “I should know better by now then to cross words with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy smiles a little wistfully at that, “I’m taking that as a compliment. Anyway, I’m going to go see about getting some new sheets. I think I’ve still got that silk pair you tried to force on me laying around somewhere.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>————</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matt is still there when Foggy gets back with the new sheets and that’s either a testament to how injured he is or a testament to the fact that he really does have nowhere else to go now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Think you can get up?” Foggy asks, moving over to Matt’s side again. He hasn’t moved an inch since Foggy left and is just back to gazing sightless eyes up at the ceiling. “I’ve got a shower you know, and you could definitely use one. Try and keep water out of that stab though, I stitched it up but it’s got a drain.” Foggy tells him lightly as Matt’s fingers run up his own side to feel the injury. He watches as Matt licks his lips before turning his head towards him, his eyes darting uselessly around Foggy’s head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t see.” He finally says after a long moment, “she-she </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> something to me. It’s-everything is </span>
  <em>
    <span>ringing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Out of focus. Muffled and too loud at the same time it’s-” He chokes on a bitter laugh. “I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>blind.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jesus Matt.” Foggy breathes on a sharp exhale as he moves over to the bed, dumping the sheets at the end of it and moving immediately to kneel on the bed at Matt’s side. He turns Matt’s head, left and then right and, sure enough there is dried blood around his ears, at least one of his eardrums has to be burst or at the very least severely swollen. He can only guess that by </span>
  <em>
    <span>she</span>
  </em>
  <span> Matt means Spider-women and isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> just something to think about. “Guess that explains why you’ve stuck around. How did you even </span>
  <em>
    <span>get</span>
  </em>
  <span> here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matt’s smile is sharp like it always is but there is a fragile edge to it that Foggy has only seen twice before and that he hates so so much. “You have a very distinctive smell Mister Nelson. I could follow it anywhere.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy rolls his eyes at that but he does huff out a small laugh. “Right. Alright. Damn it.” He really should call the cops, or hell, at least an ambulance. Matt needs proper medical treatment and sure, it would probably land him in jail at the end of the day but at least he would get to see the inside of a hospital until he was healed again. Foggy is not naive though, he knows that if someone didn’t try to off Matt at the hospital then they definitely would at the prison. Not to mention that Foggy would have to be the one bringing charges up against Matt and, even after everything that’s happened with Spider-Women and George Stacy, he knows he will never be able to do it. It’s not just to save his own tail either, after all his career is pretty much over after he prosecutes Gwen Stacy. No, this is all Matt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He runs a hand down his face and sighs. He has once again found himself with a problem that he wishes would just up and vanish but, sadly, the man he usually calls to make said problems vanish is the problem that needs to go. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lowers his hand and Matt’s head is still tilted towards him. Foggy can see it then. See that Matt is waiting for Foggy to ask, waiting for that last thread to snap. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Hey Matt,’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>his memory supplies the words, spoken a little too often, a little too much. There is blood on his hands, not as much as on Matt’s, but it is there. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘I’ve got a bit of a problem. Think you could drop by later? I could use your counsel on this.’</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He wonders if Matt would simply vanish if Foggy asked him to take care of this problem, or if he would impale himself on the nearest sword instead. He remembers the sound of Richie being stabbed through, the scream on the other side of the call and the knowledge that </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> had done that. He hadn’t known then what he had been hearing but he had known the man wouldn’t survive it. It was only later in the police report that he had seen the number of stab wounds covering the man’s body, run though inside the phone booth that he had called Foggy on and that Foggy had kept him chatting on long enough for Matt to </span>
  <em>
    <span>fix</span>
  </em>
  <span> the problem.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t the first time Foggy had witnessed the consequences of one of Matt’s fixes, but it was the first time he had heard it in real time and Foggy could see now that even that had been an attempt to drive him away. To get Foggy to abandon him too. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Hey Matt, I’ve got a bit of a problem.’</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t ask Matt to fix this problem. To run himself through just like he had Richie. Instead he moves to help get Matt up. “Come on. I’ll guide you and then see about digging out that replacement cane I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> you stashed around here Murdock.” He grumbles, awkwardly dragging Matt to his feet and across to the small connecting bathroom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My hero.” Matt mumbles, sing-songed and teasing and Foggy ignores it as he helps Matt out of the rest of his bloodied and ruined clothing before depositing him into the shower and making sure to point out what each of the bottles are, just in case.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He busies himself then with changing his bedsheets, ignoring the new bloodstain on his mattress - it’s hardly the first one there - and then wandering around his apartment trying to figure out where the fuck Matt would hide a sword in his place for emergency purposes. He really hopes it’s not in the ceiling. Foggy isn’t that acrobatic and if it </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> up there then Foggy is just going to tell Matt to suffer until Foggy can discreetly get him a </span>
  <em>
    <span>proper </span>
  </em>
  <span>cane to help him around. Not a damn sword. Jesus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s in the heating vents. In your floor.” Matt’s voice comes from the doorway to Foggy’s bedroom, causing him to jump. Foggy turns to look at him, at the towel he has wrapped around himself that is slowly turning pink from bloody water collecting on it and then to the way that Matt is leaning against the door frame. It was probably meant to look casual but Foggy had lived with Matt for three years in college and can see that the doorframe is the only thing holding him up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. I’ll dig it out in a second.” He grumbles and he tries to make it sound annoyed but he knows that it’s more tinged with worry. “Come on.” He says, going to Matt’s side and half-leads  half-carries him back to the bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They are going to come for me you know.” Matt says as Foggy positions him back down. His words are soft, almost worried. “The Hand. I’ve-,” he breaths out a small mirthless laugh, “I’ve ruined everything for them here. They’ll track me down and then they will kill you.” He pushes a hard finger against Foggy’s chest and smiles widely before pointing to himself, “and then me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your dream come true.” Foggy answers and watches as that smile slips completely off of Matt’s face in an instant, replaced with anger and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you doing this?” He demands as he grasps Foggy’s shirt between his fists and pulls him down so they are face to face, his eyes glaring and darting everywhere as if trying to find </span>
  <em>
    <span>something </span>
  </em>
  <span>to focus on in his perpetual darkness. “Why are you</span>
  <em>
    <span> doing this?!</span>
  </em>
  <span> Just tell me to go! Tell me to </span>
  <em>
    <span>leave</span>
  </em>
  <span>! I’m making your life difficult! I’m putting you in danger from all corners! Why aren’t you telling me to </span>
  <em>
    <span>leave?!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy looks at him, he’s done it often enough to know what this is, to know that Matt has backed himself purposefully into a corner and is panicking now that his plan isn’t going like it should. Like it is supposed to and Foggy remembers, once more, that Matt only ever comes to Foggy when he has nowhere else to turn. A ‘last choice’ Foggy had called it. A ‘last resort’ Matt had corrected, but a last resort for what?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy moves his hand up to cover Matt’s own which is still fisted in his shirt and trembling. “Do you remember our second year at college together?” Foggy askes and watches as the anger on Matt’s face falters before being forced back in place, “my parents were being extorted. Their business threatened, the men they owed money to kept coming around, threatening, my dad ended up in the hospital and then, one day, bam. They were gone. Every last one of them. Like they never existed. Like nothing ever happened at all.” Foggy goes silent for a moment and Matt’s hands have only started to shake more. “I’m not an idiot Matt, and I’m not as naive as I play out to be. I know what happened to those men, what you did. I might not have been asking you for help then, not directly, but you helped me anyway. You always help me anyways. With my parents shop, with Rosa’s Bodega, with the Miller and Sons business, and that construction company that was giving the neighborhood a hard time.“</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Foggy-“ Matt’s voice cuts in and It sounds wet, broken in a way that is both pained and angry, a demand to stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not an </span>
  <em>
    <span>idiot</span>
  </em>
  <span> Matt.” Foggy pushes on, ignoring him as his hand tightens around Matt’s own “I might not have known the first time, or even the second, but I figured it out pretty damn quick that mentioning certain </span>
  <em>
    <span>problems</span>
  </em>
  <span> around you got said problems to disappear. And, ya, for a while I waited for the other shoe to drop. For you to come forward, to demand something from me, but you </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> did. Years later it never did. I had to come to you </span>
  <em>
    <span>first</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>had to cross the aisle and start making my requests directly because you were doing these things, you were </span>
  <em>
    <span>making people vanish </span>
  </em>
  <span>for </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span> and you weren’t even mentioning it. Weren’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>asking </span>
  </em>
  <span>about it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>had to take the next step. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>had to force your hand. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> had to make you treat my ‘requests’ as a tit-for-tat rather than some secret favor you were bestowing on me. I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> an idiot Matt.” He breathed, deeply and shakily, before letting it out, “I’ve asked you for help me so many times, indirectly and up front, and right now you are asking for my help and so, no matter how much you fight me on it, I’m not going to cut you loose.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The wet and broken note to Matt’s voice comes out again and it’s either a choked sob or an angry cut off scream, Foggy’s not sure but it doesn’t seem important as Matt’s hands start to shake him, angry and vicious but with little true strength behind them. “You idiot. You </span>
  <em>
    <span>idiot</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” He repeats, his hands trembling hard in Foggy’s grasp, “you idiot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m really not Matt.” Foggy says soothingly as Matt falls forward and buries his head in his shoulder. “Im really really not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>———</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matt falls asleep like that which probably has more to do with blood loss then anything else so Foggy settles him back into the bed and goes out to keep shop. He writes up an email to send off in the morning telling the girls at the office that he is working from home ‘given the nature of the case’. It isn’t exactly a lie but even if it had been he knows he wouldn’t feel bad about it, and promptly sits in front of his computer doing nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, not nothing, but having an existential crisis is probably pretty damn close.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>———</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> anymore Foggy. I have no influence, no power,” Matt is ranting the next morning. Foggy had fallen asleep at his computer and his back is killing him for his terrible choices, but it’s easy enough to ignore when he is forced to concentrate on a seething Matt Murdock, “I can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>be </span>
  </em>
  <span>the person that fixes your problems for you anymore! I have nothing!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foggy had always wondered what drove Matt to fix his problems, the big and small, but looking at him now he thinks he might get it. He thinks that the real reason that Matt kept fixing his problems for him was because Matt was desperate for someone, for Foggy, to stop him. To step up to the plate and yell and fight Matt. To tell him that what he had done, what he was doing, was </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong </span>
  </em>
  <span>and demand he stop. Only, if that was the case, then it had spectacularly backfired on Matt because Foggy hadn’t stepped up, hadn’t taken the moral high ground and instead had let Matt drag him down onto his path with him, had let Matt corrupt him instead of the other way around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though, looking at Matt miserable in his bed, he thought that maybe that wasn’t exactly true either. Maybe as Matt was dragging Foggy down, Foggy was managing to drag a little bit of humanity down to Matt with him.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You still have me Matt,” he says after Matt’s raving was over and done with and he watched as Matt’s face just filled with more anger, “and I already told you: I’m not going anywhere.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>help </span>
  </em>
  <span>you any more!” Matt yells right back, arms failing in his general direction as if wanting to grab him but thinking better of if.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ya, well, It’s my turn to help you.” He reiterates, “and I already told you I would, so stop complaining.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tries to change Matt’s bandages but Matt is being difficult and not making the job easy. He is seething in anger, turning away from Foggy, crossing his arms and flailing them out at the worst moments. The anger and tantrum seems to be his default state at this point and Foggy can’t tell if it was because Foggy was refusing to cooperate and just let Matt go, or if it was because Matt’s ears were still giving him issues and he couldn’t run even if he wanted to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His relationship with Matt is a mess, a complicated tangle of too-much and too-little. A friendship masquerading as manipulation and coercion so no one looks too close. Foggy knows that that is his doing, not Matt’s. Hell, Matt might have even gotten to the point, after all these years, that he had started to believe it too. Started to believe that this </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> between them was just him using Foggy like he uses everyone else. Foggy knows better though, because Matt had </span>
  <em>
    <span>fixed</span>
  </em>
  <span> things for him without comment, because </span>
  <em>
    <span>Foggy</span>
  </em>
  <span> had had to be the one to cross the aisle, had had to be the one to not exactly bring their relationship to the light, but at least drag it into a dark alley where it could be overheard. To turn it into something Matt could spin as just another thread in his web of manipulations. Foggy had done that. Thrown a tarp of lies over their relationship to keep them safe. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Both </span>
  </em>
  <span>of them, because Matt, at the end of the day, is his friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matt fixed things for Foggy. It was Foggy’s turn to fix things for Matt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve heard San Francisco is pretty nice this time of year.” He comments carefully, casually as he finally ties off the bandage and pats it firmly to make sure it will stay in place. Under his hand Matt startles so hard that it’s almost funny. Almost. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” He asks, incredulously once his shock has worn off. Foggy sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m dropping a lot of the charges against Spider-woman. It’s the least I can do after the role I played in...in putting her dad in the hospital.” He clears his throat and glanced away, “it’s career suicide. This is going to be my last case and then...I’m throwing in the towel. So I figured. Well, once that’s done, I’ll have nothing too. At least, not anything worth holding on to.” He swallows, “so: San Francisco?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matt is silent for a long moment, just sitting stiffly up in bed, his eyes unseeingly fixed on the far wall. Foggy’s going to need to get him some new glasses, maybe just not red this time. They are too distinct. Black. It’s going to have to be black.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ll still come after me.” Matt speaks up and his voice is harsh and mirthless, “The Hand won’t stop until I’m dead and I-“ he lets out a growl of frustration “I don’t know if I can stop Foggy. Moving to a new place, I might just start all over again, rework my way into the system, build my power back up. I can’t promise that I’ll </span>
  <em>
    <span>stop.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t remember ever asking you to.” Foggy says, which startles Matt again and Foggy lets out another long suffering sigh. “Matt, I know what you are. I know who you are, and ya: I might not know the exact details, but I like to think I know you well enough to know that this is just a small interlude in our lives.” Because Matt isn’t one to stay still, isn’t one to stop fighting, pushing, testing his limits, testing other people’s limits. So ya, they will be here again, in one year, in five years, in twenty years, they will be here again until the day either Foggy dies or Matt dies and then, well, it probably won’t matter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So: San Francisco?” He asks again, thinking that the third time might be the charm. He watches as Matt’s angry scowl becomes deeper, angrier, before slowly, oh so slowly morphing into a contemplative look and then, finally his characteristic wolf-like smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“San Francisco…” he says slowly, as if testing the name on his lips, “Alright. I think we can work with that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Foggy thinks that ya, ya, they really can. </span>
</p>
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